The corset I am making is Truly Victorian Late Edwardian Corset. I am making the view with the higher bust.

First, before even cutting anything out, I shortened each pattern piece by 2″ above the waist. The pattern underarm-to-waist measurement is 9″, and I am only 7″. I am just that short.

First Mock

The waist obviously needed to be bigger. I was surprised by how off this was, given that my experience with Truly Victorian patterns is that they always have very accurate sizing. My normal waist is 30″, the size I cut out claimed to be a corseted measurement of 27″. The corset itself was only 23″ around, which was ridiculously small.

This is made out of duck cloth from the remnant bin at Joann. It’s heavy and not stretchy, making it a good substitute for coutil in a corset mock. The seam allowances are pressed open and sewn down on the inside to make boning channels. I had about 10 bones of random sizes lying around that I used here.

Conclusions:

1. I really am shaped like a rectangle. This isn’t news to me, but it’s a good thing this era is *not* focused on waist reduction. The goal of the corset is to have a smooth line from bust to hips.
2. The waist needs to be let out and the bust taken in. I elected to focus on the waist first, and added 2″ total to the corset by adding 1/4″ to panels 3-6 on both sides. This comes out to 1/8″ extra per seam allowance. This is why it’s so important to sew accurate seams on corsets! 1/8″ extra on a few seam allowances leads to a dramatic size difference.
3. Advice from the Class Facebook group was also to shorten the corset. I did this on one sizeonly  for comparison purposes.

Second Mock

I trimmed an inch off the bottom on one side only, hence the lopsidedness.

You can also see the chalk for where I intend the boning to end. Compare to the pattern length, which is where the seams go down to. That would have been super stabby!

Conclusions:

1. Huzzah waist looks good now! Note I am getting zero waist reduction from this corset.
2. This revealed that the bust was too big. If I tightened the corset to be sufficiently tight on the bust, I ended up with a lacing gap that was significantly smaller on the top. For the next mock I ended up taking the bust in by 3/4″ on each side, or 1/8″ on panels 4-6.
3. It also looked like the bust was too high. For the next one I trimmed it down a bit, again on one side only to see what it looked like.

Third Mock

Trimmed the bust line on this size. It’s in a weird place now, being neither supportive nor a true underbust.

When the bust is the right size, the height magically looks good too.

Ugh, piece 4 is the ugliest shape now, where the top is narrower than the waist. At least the top will be covered by wide lace, so it won’t be visible.

Conclusion:

1. Houston, we have a good fit in the waist, bust, and hips!
2. For some reason the top seems to be hitting at a good place when not-trimmed. I’m going to leave this as is, and I can always trim it down on the final corset if I need to.

Now to make these pattern changes on paper, so I can start cutting actual fabric.